Carmi Mandelkern

I’ve always been analytical. My grandmother says that as a child I would carefully examine a present before opening it, trying to figure out what it “could” be. I’ve also always been driven to do whatever I can for others, especially the most vulnerable. That I learned from my father, my role model, who taught me the importance of compassion. I feel tremendously grateful to work at Lyndra, where I am surrounded by others with similar motives and passions.

Growing up in Fairfield, CT, I didn’t know I’d have a career in research science. But while I was earning my degree in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut, I worked in a lab and learned what it takes to gather data, sometimes even staying up for long shifts overnight. That project taught me how satisfying it is to get a result. After graduation, I worked in Israel investigating cancer drug delivery systems. Feeling drawn to the pharmaceutical research field, I returned home and started applying for jobs. At first the search was frustrating. It seemed like most companies were more interested in profits than people. Lyndra is different. Our goal is to make medicine more accessible. Here, it is about people. For me, that’s a reason to work; that’s the reason I would spend nights in the lab at UConn, and it’s what makes this work worth doing.

Today, one of my main focuses is the mechanical testing of Lyndra’s dosage form. Replicating what happens in a stomach is a complex challenge, and getting it right requires input from many disciplines. I work with design engineers, biologists and chemists—we support one another to overcome the obstacles that stand in our way. It’s a complicated problem, but there’s nothing like the excitement that comes from figuring out a piece of the puzzle and knowing that here, your hard work has the potential to help people around the world.